March 2007

Because the mobile web needed to be more screwed up

Submitted by Brian McMurray on Thu, 03/29/2007 - 14:31

Microsoft DeepfishSaw this article this morning on The Register. Microsoft is unveiling a new mobile browser, Deepfish, which they plan will make viewing webpages on mobile devices more like being on a desktop. This will work by loading a "thumbnail" of the webpage and then allowing you to "zoom in" to the area you want to see. Supposedly Microsoft is saving on how much data will be downloaded by only loading the content you want to see. Perhaps I'm just too much of a standardista, but do we really need this? Microsoft claims this will alleviate the need for designers and developers to create a specific handheld stylesheet, and sure, it will, but isn't this getting away from the entire point of CSS and standards-based XHTML? Not to mention that this browser will only run on Microsoft powered PDAs and phones. The majority of cellphone users aren't using Windows Mobile devices, so what about them? They're screwed.

It's already bad enough that Pocket IE loads both the screen stylesheet and the handheld stylesheet. Then you get other devices like the Blackberry which broadcast that they are a desktop computer so they don't ever load the handheld stylesheet. Add into that the sordid state of built-in browsers on most phones with their poor CSS implementation and Opera Mini's built-in overrides and the mobile web is already a mess.

The Web is perhaps the greatest medium for content. It doesn't behave, however, like print and TV. For years, we as designers and developers have had to fight trying to force a square peg into a round hole. When big software companies do something like Deepfish, all we're doing is taking a miter to the round hole and slowly cutting it out into a square, when what we should be doing is finding a way to turn our square peg into a circle peg.

Quiz Answers Amuse Me

Submitted by Steven Merrill on Tue, 03/27/2007 - 12:01

Grading quizzes is always fun. Last semester, I got my favorite answer yet from a student who remarked that:

"Standards-based web design uses XHTML and CSS to separate the men from the boys."

(The answer I was looking for, of course, was presentation from content.)

As I finished up some grading for midterms, I got a far funnier answer than that one. You will need to know something about web design to understand this one.

The question was "What is divitis?"

<div id="maincontainer">
<div id="insideContainer">
<div id="answerContainer">
<div id="answer">
<div id="answerTop"></div>
<div id="answerBody">
<div id="title"><h1>THIS IS DIVITIS</h1></div>
<div id="explanation">
It's where people use waaay to many unnecessary div's to basically fake the "power" they had with tables.
</div>
</div>
<div id="answerBottom"></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

I won't post the author's identity, but I'm guessing he or she will comment and claim this massive, epic win.

Redesigning Bradley Multimedia

Submitted by Brian McMurray on Sun, 03/25/2007 - 00:13

BU Site Redesign?possiblyThis has also been keeping me busy lately, working on a redesign for the Bradley Multimedia Program's website. The site is in need of an update (as I'm sure you all can see), and we wanted to create something that was more representative of the Program, who we are, and where we are going. With this, I also wanted to match the Slane College of Communications and Fine Arts' recently redesign website so that the Program's branding was well placed, as well as to keep with Bradley University's image.

As a class assignment, there are a lot of other students with other designs, but this is my take. With any luck, or perhaps just a good pitch presentation, my design might be selected, but I figured I'd throw this out to the world and see what people thought before I do that.

As though it weren't obvious, the orange squares are where photos would be placed; I simply didn't have anything fitting and we didn't get any source media to work from.

I've been busy: an online RSVP app

Submitted by Brian McMurray on Sun, 03/25/2007 - 00:03

The last few weeks have been quite busy for me with wedding planning, work, and my final semester of school ramping up for the death star trench run of projects and finals. I did, however, find some time last week to create this new web app: an online RSVP system so that all of the guests we are inviting can quickly and easily tell us whether or not they'll be attending. Sure, I could have just sent self-addressed and stamped return envelopes with our invitations, but where's the fun in that?

Hilarious

Submitted by Steven Merrill on Thu, 03/08/2007 - 20:15

I read dealnews.com, an excellent deal tracking site. Although their posts are normally rather dry - "this deal is $20 less than we've ever seen it," they slip in some hilarious bits from time to time, as in this posting today. (Emphasis mine.)

The Boston Globe reports that by the end of this year, all courses at MIT will be available online for free. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's MIT OpenCourseWare program provides coursework for all 35 departments, including Architecture, Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and more. Over 1,500 of the 1,800 total courses are available now. Upgrading to full tuition costs about $46,000 more.

What To See and Hear: March 6th - March 11th, 2007

Submitted by Steven Merrill on Mon, 03/05/2007 - 06:08

As a trained classical musician and one of the few gigging tenors based in the Peoria area, I'm actively involved in the classical music scene around here. I'm a cantor and the tenor section leader for St. Mary's Cathedral downtown. It's a great honor to get to sing there two or three times a weekend - it is of the most visually and acoustically beautiful places in Peoria.

Before I get into the musical event which you should all see this week, I need to mention a groundbreaking theatre performance called The Adding Machine that you should see if you get the chance. Bradley University Theatre and Multimedia have been laboring together for seven months now to produce this show. In addition to the official site I linked to earlier, the Peoria Journal Star did an excellent write-up on the show this weekend. Because of the demanding technical nature of the performance, including actors brought in from Internet 2, live video compositing on stage, and so on, it will only run this week.

As for music, the Cathedral always puts on quality performances, but we have an extra-special concert going on this weekend. This Friday evening for Stations of Cross, the Cathedral Schola welcomed Mervyn Cousins, an internationally-renowned conductor and organist. He sang with us and played organ, and he also joined us for our Saturday afternoon Latin-language Mass and our Sunday morning Mass.

Each night this week, the Cathedral Schola is meeting to work with Mervyn on John Rutter's excellent Requiem. After four nights of practice, the Cathedral Schola will put on a concert this Friday night at 7:15 PM that includes not only Rutter's Requiem with orchestra but also a special Latin three-part Stabat Mater.

Again, the executive summary:

  1. This Friday night, come to the Cathedral of St. Mary's on Monroe Street in downtown Peoria at 7:15 PM for a special Stations of the Cross mass with a unique Stabat Mater and a full performance of John Rutter's Requiem with choir and orchestra. (It's free, but a free-will offering will be taken at some point, I'm sure.)
  2. Go see Adding Machine this week. It plays Tuesday through Saturday nights at 8:00 PM and Sunday afternoon at 2:30 PM. Call the Bradley University Box Office at (309)677-2652 for tickets.

I hope you get to enjoy both of these performances this week. (Because of the choir practices are every night this week, I won't get to see Adding Machine until Saturday evening.)

Ecto, WordPress 2.x, and WebDAV

Submitted by Steven Merrill on Fri, 03/02/2007 - 19:16

I've been thinking a little bit on my blogging workflow, and since Bradley University owns a site license for ecto, I decided to start posting via that tool when I'm at my MacBook Pro. I'm also going to investigate some blogging tools for my Windows Mobile phone next, since I already have it set up to automatically photoblog through Flickr.

An Artist Visits, Part 1

Submitted by Steven Merrill on Fri, 03/02/2007 - 17:31

An excellent interactive artist named Paul Catanese visited Bradley University on Thursday. He was part of this year's set of Visual Voices lectures, and his visit was excellent for a large number of reasons.

Paul is much like me, in that he teaches in the field of multimedia. We swapped notes on techniques in web design classes. (He was quite impressed with Chad's idea to use a del.icio.us account to keep track of pertinent web links.) We discussed quite a few issues in teaching web design:

  1. In the span of only two classes, we must take folks who are used to the drag and drop ease of Flash, and show them that to truly write standards-compliant sites, you need to have a good understanding of the HTML code of a website. (Luckily, we've begun to introduce HTML and basic web design earlier into Bradley University's curriculum.)
  2. Paul said that he'd love to be able to teach PHP and MySQL in his top-level web design course, but that he just feels that there isn't enough time.
  3. I was showing my class some tips on producing sitemaps and wireframes in OmniGraffle when Paul came into my web design course. If you own a Macintosh, you owe it to yourself to at least download OmniGraffle, since there it a 20-node limited version available. There are excellent free stencils available to produce wireframes, UML diagrams, network layouts, and hundreds of other types of graphical documents. Paul showed me Graffletopia, which has literally hundreds of free documents and stencils available for download.

Then Paul left for a little bit as I went to gather the stable of mobile phones for my special topics course, and I offered to let him speak for quite awhile, since Paul has done some neat things with blending gaming appliances like the Game Boy Advance into his artwork.